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Fernando Alonso clinched a crucial victory for Ferrari at their home race at Monza to take his 3rd victory of the season. Alonso won the race despite losing the lead at the start to Jenson Button, however the Spaniard never let Button get away from him in the race and seized the initiative after his pit stop to move past the Briton and re-take the lead. The championship contender held on to his edge to record a much needed win. Felipe Massa came in third for Ferrari followed by Sebastian Vettel who managed to stay fourth after pitting only in the penultimate lap of the race. Mark Webber finished sixth behind Nico Rosberg, but it was good enough to take the championship lead after Lewis Hamilton crashed out in the first lap of the race.

As the five red lights went out at the start, Jenson Button made a determined move to get past Fernando Alonso on the inside of the first corner.  Felipe Massa made a clean start and kept his third place but championship leader Lewis Hamilton blew his race in the very first lap when he broke his steering arm after clipping the rear wing of Massa's car.  The two Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, starting for only the second time this season away from pole were a fair bit down the pecking order in 7^th and 9^th the result of great starts from Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkerberg.  After the first couple of laps the order was Button, Alonso, Massa, Rosberg, Kubica, Hulkenberg, Vettel, Schumacher, Webber.

The start had set up an intriguing battle between Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso. Button, who was running a high downforce setup was faster going through the odd corners at Monza but Alonso had the better measure of the fast straights. The result was a see sawing battle wherein Alonso got close at the end of the straights only to be blocked by Button at the corners.

Mark Webber made a neat move past Michael Schumacher on lap 7 to regain his position and the 7-time champion tried to come right back at the Aussie only to be denied. Schumacher lost further time on the Red Bull after struggling for grip in his Mercedes.  By this time the top three had pulled away from the rest of the pack. Button's setup was holding up well against Alonso's Ferrari, while Massa was just about keeping up with the top two. The gap between 1 and 2 grew slowly from less than half a second to 1.3 by lap 17 but Alonso pegged it back to 0.7 by lap 23 as lap times improved with reducing fuel loads.

Behind the lead pack, Rosberg was running in an unchallenged fourth spot but there was a flurry of activity behind him as a train of cars which included the two Red Bulls battled for places 5,6,7 and 8.  Robert Kubica's Renault led this pack. Sebastian Vettel's season of frustration continued when he reported engine problems on lap 22 and his team mate Webber made an easy pass over him to take over 7^th spot from the young German. Thankfully for Vettel, his engine seemed to cure itself and he recovered his pace in a couple of laps to maintain his lead over Schumacher in 9^th.

The lead pack met the backmarkers on lap 25 giving Alonso an opportunity to overtake Button. Button managed to keep his position after getting past a couple of backmarkers but the gap between himself and Alonso was now less than a second.At the middle of the field meanwhile, Mark Webber was breathing down the neck of Hulkenberg's Williams as he scrambled to take advantage of Lewis Hamilton's retirement but the Williams proved a bit too resilient for the Aussie as Hulkenberg held off Webber before the first set of pit stops. Robert Kubica was the first of the top 5 to pit on lap 34. He was followed by Rosberg and Webber who rejoined in 7^th and 9^th respectively with Kubica slotted in between the two in 8^th.

Race leader Button pitted on lap 37 and after a clean pit stop managed to get back out in 3^rd place. This gave Alonso the opportunity to get ahead of Button given a clean pit stop and it all went perfectly for the Spaniard as he came out alongside Button while exiting the pits. Alonso made his move to topple Button from his perch and send the Tifosi into raptures. There seemed to be no stopping Alonso after he took the lead and strung together successive fastest laps to slowly build a lead on Button. A frustrated Button was left to question his team's tactics over the radio as Alonso extended his lead to almost 2 seconds in the matter of a few laps.

At this point only Sebastian Vettel had not pitted, the German opting to stay on track to build a lead on his team mate, which had swelled to 23 seconds by now. Webber meanwhile was struggling to get past the Williams of Hulkenberg, who was putting up a stiff resistance, often weaving past Webber's nose and infuriating the Aussie in the process. Webber would eventually prevail after a clean move on the Williams to take over 6^th place.The other Red Bull of Vettel had stayed on track and had yet not pitted once and as a result the German had built a significant lead on Nico Roberg and Mark Webber. Vettel pitted finally and astonishingly so on the penultimate lap of the race in what will go down as a stroke of Red Bull genius to rejoin in 4^th place.

Alonso had a brief heart in the mouth moment as he skipped the first corner to avoid the Sauber of Pedro de la Rosa but his lead over Button was such that the error mattered little and the Spaniard set one more fastest lap before taking the chequered flag for his 23^rd career victory and his 3^rd of the season. Button and Massa brought up the podium positions while Vettel, Rosberg, Webber, Hulkenberg, Kubica, Schumacher and Barrichello made up the rest of the top 10. Both Williams cars finished in the points to round off a great weekend for the historic team while Force India's subpar weekend extended to the race as they could not manage to finish either car in the points.

The result at Monza has reshaped the championship race once again into a 5 horse battle. Mark Webber made the most of Hamilton's mistake and will have the upper hand going into the last set of non European races which are more suited to his car. Sebstian Vettel has also kept himself in the race with the help of some fine strategy. But the day belonged to Ferrari who chose the best possible place to put their championship challenge back on track after a disappointing result at Spa. They've ensured that the Championship is still anyone's for the taking.

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